MEDIA RELEASE

Families and community friends of Waimea Middle School are invited to “Get The Scoop” on the soon-to-begin 2012-13 school year with an informal gathering from 5-6 p.m., Thursday, July 19 in the school cafeteria.

It’s free and will include scoops of steaming hot soup – perfect for what has been a chilly, damp Waimea summer.

The gathering will include a brief presentation at 5:30 p.m., first introducing the school’s new principal Matt Horne, and then the school’s newly appointed Local Advisory Panel (LAP), which recently elected Dr. Kamana Beamer as its chair.

LAP members represent all school stakeholder groups including students, families, faculty, staff, school administrators, community representatives and members of Hookakoo Corporation, the WMS not-for-profit local school board.

The welcome briefing also will celebrate recent student and faculty achievements and preview the year ahead including such highlights as continuing the process to secure Accreditation – the academic “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval — from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).

Also to be shared will be academic plans for the coming year and how families and the community can support student achievement.

The Horne family recently moved from eastern Oregon, where he served as a school improvement administrator for Ontario High School. He was responsible for helping turn around what was one of Oregon’s lowest performing high schools and making No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in just two years.

Families also will get to welcome Beamer as LAP chairman. Beamer, who is the only grandchild of the late Nona Beamer, is a life-long resident of Waimea and graduate of Kamehameha Schools.

He recently became an assistant professor with Hui Aina Momona, a new collaborative partnership involving the UH-Manoa School of Hawaiian Knowledge and the William S. Richardson School of Law.

Before that, Beamer was the Land Legacy Education Manager for Kamehameha Schools Land Asset Division.

“We are grateful Dr. Beamer has agreed to make time to serve the children and families of Waimea as our volunteer LAP Chair; he not only represents the next generation of leadership in this community but comes with impressive academic credentials that are sure to support our teachers and staff as we work together to raise the bar for our children,” Horne said.

The school year will begin for WMS students at 8 a.m., Monday, July 30. Families are urged to take advantage of the school’s annual back-to-school Gear Up from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday, July 23 through Friday, July 27 to pick up class schedules, register for free after-school Homework Help+, purchase uniforms, pay for busing and lunch (no price increases), yearbook and student dues, as needed.

Families may come to the school office daily before then to purchase uniform t-shirts and pickup a school supplies list. The supply list, 2012-13 School Year Calendar, uniform order form and everything else families will need for the start of the school year can also be found on the school website: www.WaimeaMiddleSchool.org

No registration is required for students moving from Waimea Elementary to Waimea Middle, however families with students coming into WMS from other schools should stop by the school office as soon as possible to complete registration.

WMS is a pubic conversion charter school that takes all students in the geographic area and also can accept Geographic Exceptions, but families are urged to check in several weeks before the start of the school year to expedite registration.

For further information, call WMS at 887-6090 Ext. 222 or for the school’s community liaison, call 937-2833.

For the school’s registrar, call 887-6090 Ext. 228.